BIG have been on a journey of improvement in 2022, adding Karim “Krimbo” Moussa from the academy squad and just recently bringing gob b back from their Valorant division.
Since the return of gob BIG have seen an immediate improvement, showing excellent form at the European RMR and coming back from a disappointing PGL Major Antwerp run by taking top-four at IEM Dallas.
gob b has overseen an upswing in BIG’s form
After adding another feather to his cap by securing top-three here at the Pinnacle Cup Championship, gob b sat down with HLTV to chat about the event so far, his motivations for returning to Counter-Strike, and the lessons he has brought over from Valorant.
First things first, congratulations, how does it feel to make it to the arena?
(sighs) very good, it’s a relief because if we lose this game it’s going to be Heroic, and that’s going to be a bloodbath.
This group is very strong, fnatic also have a very good roster now, they can build on it. It’s hard to play against an opponent when you don’t know anything, and we are always feeling good when we have prep. I am happy we are top-three now.
Losing Nuke must have been a kick in the teeth, what do you think went wrong there?
It was just that we weren’t awake. I tried to fire up a little bit, ignite the fire, but man we felt very shaky, our concentration was not there, and I’m like “guys, if we lose, we lose, but I want a fighting loss.” We needed to fight and come back, the map didn’t matter too much, we didn’t lose because of Nuke we would have even lost Dust2. It was just totally awful Counter-Strike and concentration, sloppiness, and very hectic, not our normal face.
After that I tried to fire them up a little bit, and said to cheer a little bit because normally we say we like to be calm, but this time we needed to wake up. That’s why today I was more vocal than normal.
Was it a tough second map to go to Overpass, something that has not traditionally been a strength of BIG?
It’s a tough second map for sure, but we are working a lot on our Overpass, and we have made some changes. Yesterday we couldn’t really prepare for fnatic of course, so we tried to prepare ourselves.
This is our second tournament in a row, and we will have a third, so we said before we came that we would use our free time sometimes for relaxing, but also kind of bootcamping. This is what we have been doing, trying to get better in uncomfortable spots like Overpass, so for me it was nothing about the map we just needed to wake up or we would lose any map.
You must have been confident going into Vertigo? I know the Copenhagen Flames boys have been playing it, but the previous fnatic didn’t really like the map.
Yeah we were feeling very confident because they are a new team, maybe with a stand-in I don’t know, and they cannot have all the protocols on every map, every setup, they can’t have everything tuned. It was also a map where we have lost two times in a row now, against FURIA who are one of the best teams on that map, but we felt confident.
It was about trying to focus, understand what is happening on the map, feeling the flow and then luckily we won a few important clutches. It was a good result for us.
Do you feel like you can kick on and win this tournament now?
Yeah definitely, we try to win this tournament. Our goal, my goal when I took over the coaching role, was definitely to bring the team back into the top 10, and I think we are doing a great job now.
For me, this is not the biggest event yet, there’s BLAST and Cologne. Cologne is the really important one, every tournament is important, but this is like the holy grail.
Definitely we will try to win this tournament for sure, we know that we can do it, Heroic are not in the best form even if they are the favourites. We know there are some other good teams, and a lot of teams that will try to use this event to ignite them again, like Astralis. A lot of people want this trophy, and we want it as well.
You mention taking over the coaching role, what was the main motivation for you to return to CS?
The motivation was definitely tabseN. I was very motivated to help him, to help him go to where he deserves to be, because I know it’s very hard for an IGL to not get frustrated. It’s hard for him to teach every player, also very young players, and I felt like I needed to help him, that was the most motivation.
Valorant was very cool, and I loved the game, but for me Counter-Strike is the highest league and the competition is just harder. Analysing enemies is not only from VODs, we have programs to analyse demos, so it’s more fun in that way, and I am really enjoying my time as a coach I must say.
Have you brought lessons over from Valorant? I know it’s a completely different game, but maybe it gave you a different perspective on Counter-Strike?
Yeah definitely, I think the perspective of Valorant helped me a lot with teaching people again. I needed to teach a lot of people in Valorant, they were very young players as well and they didn’t have Counter-Strike experience so I needed to start from the bottom. It helped me a lot.
Also I have another view on the game, like how we balance things out, how to use maybe the AWP, make it invisible on the map so they are afraid everywhere. Small stuff.
When I came back, I had to grind out the meta of CS, but once I understood it more again I could bring those ideas from Valorant, it has definitely helped me I must say. I wouldn’t have thought about this before, but now I can say definitely it helped me be ready for this role.
